In regard to railroad ties formed of wooden, plastic and composite materials, traditionally only spikes are driven through apertures in two-spaced tie plates, each placed on top of each tie, into non-apertured tie locations. The extent to which the spikes, once driven, and the tie plates through which the spikes pass are held in place depends on the compression forces of the tie material against each spike. If the spikes loosen, the associated tie plate will also loosen, creating a potential for damage and a danger for trains traveling over the track. While the driven-spike-only approach typically works well with soft wood and other soft materials, it often does not with hard woods and other hard materials. While hard wood ties last longer than soft wood ties, hard wood ties are too often split by the spikes as the spikes are driven. Thus, the split hard wood tie does not compressively hold the spikes in the fully driven position and the tie plates become loose creating the potential for damage and danger as mentioned above.
Use of nut and bolt fasteners in lieu of and/or together with spikes for hard wood ties has heretofore been rejected in the railroad industry because of the cost of pre-drilling the ties and the nut and bolt fasteners, and difficulty in stacking such pre-plated ties in inventory and on transportation vehicles. Tightening of such bolts into associated nuts, to retain an associated tie plate tightly on the tie, has been problematic because the nut not only extends below the bottom of the tie, but often rotates as the bolt is rotated.
Screw spikes, which tend to cause the tie to split, have also been proposed for holding tie plates correctly on top of railroad ties, but the screw spikes tend to fracture, under the forces of train vibration over time, at the reduced diameter site located between the shank and the top of the threads.
Based on the prior art described above, it would be a major break through to provide effective spikeless tie plate fasteners, reliable pre-plated railroad ties having at least one spikeless tie plate fastener and at least one spike fastener in each tie plate, and related assemblies and methods.